France’s Macron calls for Kabul ‘safe zone’

France and Britain will on Monday urge the United Nations to work for the creation of a "safe zone" in the Afghan capital Kabul to protect humanitarian operations, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

Published: 29 August 2021 07:09 CEST

France's Macron calls for Kabul 'safe zone'

French President Emmanuel Macron holds a press conference at the guest house in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on August 28th, 2021. Ludovic MARIN / AFP

“This is very important. This would provide a framework for the United Nations to act in an emergency,” Macron said in comments published in French weekly Journal du Dimanche.

Above all such a safe zone would allow the international community “to maintain pressure on the Taliban,” who are now in power in Afghanistan, the French leader added.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council — France, Britain, the US, Russia and China — will meet on Monday to discuss the Afghanistan situation.

Paris and London will take the opportunity to present a draft resolution which “aims to define, under UN control, a ‘safe zone’ in Kabul, that will allow humanitarian operations to continue,” Macron said.

His comments come as international efforts to airlift foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghanis out of the country comes to an end.

France ended its evacuation efforts on Friday and the United Kingdom followed suit on Saturday

US troops have been scrambling in dangerous and chaotic conditions to complete a massive evacuation operation from the Kabul airport by an August 31st deadline.

Macron announced on Saturday that discussions had been “started with the Taliban” to “protect and repatriate” Afghan nationals at risk beyond August 31st.

Speaking to reporters in Iraq, where he was attending a meeting of key regional leaders, Macron added that with help from Qatar, which maintains good relations with the Taliban, there was a possibility of further airlift operations.

He added that France had evacuated 2,834 people from Afghanistan since August 17th.

In the article published by the French Sunday newspaper, Macron said he envisaged targeted evacuations in future “which would not be carried out at the military airport in Kabul” but perhaps via civil airports in the Afghan capital or from neighbouring countries.

Macron also took aim at the kind of talk going on some quarters in France which “stir fears” about the arrival of Afghan refugees in France.

“My role is not to stir up fears among our compatriots, it is to provide solutions to resolve them,” he added, assuring that he aims to manage migratory pressures with “humanity, firmness, with a ability to protect our borders as necessary”.

Member comments

Anonymous - 29 August 2021 at 08:16 CEST

Even if the Taliban agree to this which is extremely doubtful, Isis-K would never agree and they are the biggest threat in that region at the moment.

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The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is currently far ahead in opinion polls for the June 9th elections in France, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party in a battle for second place with the Socialists.

The debate between Attal, 35, and Bardella, 28, who leads the RN’s list in the EU elections, will be the first head-to-head clash between the two leading figures in a new French political generation.

Polls have been making increasingly uncomfortable reading for Macron, who has had to fly to the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia to try to calm the violent unrest there.

Coming third would be a disaster for the president, who portrays himself as a champion of European democracy and bulwark against the far right.

The head of Macron’s party list for the elections, the little known Valérie Heyer, has failed to make an impact and was widely seen as losing a debate with Bardella earlier this month.

According to a Toluna-Harris Interactive study for French media, the presidential camp is stuck at just 15 percent of the vote and in a dogfight for second place with the Socialists – who are on 14.5 percent – led by former commentator Raphael Glucksmann.

The RN, by contrast, is soaring ahead on 31.5 percent.

The RN’s figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has waged three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, has sought to bring the RN into the political mainstream as she eyes another tilt at the presidency in 2027.

“There is a very clear signal that must be sent to Emmanuel Macron. He must suffer the worst possible defeat to bring him back to earth,” Le Pen told CNews and Europe 1 this week.

Bardella, who took over the party leadership from his mentor, is key to Le Pen’s strategy, a gifted communicator of immigrant origin with an expanding following on TikTok.

Attal, also one of the best debaters in Macron’s government, is expected to seek to portray Bardella as an extremist, complacent over the threat posed by Russia and who has little interest in Europe.

Apparently aware of the danger, Bardella on Tuesday said the RN will no longer sit in the EU parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies.

The head of the AfD’s list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview that someone who had been a member of the SS in Nazi Germany was “not automatically a criminal”.

Bardella is “putting his credibility and the future of his movement on the line in the debate”, said the Le Monde daily, adding that a strong performance could see some RN supporters regard him as a stronger candidate in 2027 than Le Pen.

You can find a more detailed profile of Attal HERE and a look at Bardella HERE